#i feel really bad cause every time i do an edit people are like mels!!!! and then i just go mia for another six months | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

moc-alexcross · 6 years ago

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Castle on the Hill || Chex

Tagging: Chloe Lynn & Alex Cross Where: Linlithgow, Scotland - UK When: March 12th, 2019 Notes: Chloe and Alex have a picnic in front of a fireplace and take the time to talk and get to know each other.

Chloe

"Oh God. I still can't believe we're actually here. In a castle!" Chloe said as she her hand was on a stone ledge and she peered out the clear glass which overlooked the front. "This is surreal. Wonderfully surreal." She looked back to Alex with a smile before turning to lean agains the ledge. "And this picnic in front of a fireplace spread is such a romantic idea." Chloe had to admit this really was nice, even when she felt nervous about everything to come.

Alex

"I'm glad you like it this much." A soft smile tugged at the corner of Alex's mouth as he looked back at her. Chloe's enthusiasm for the small castle made the trip to Scotland more than worth it. I have my moments," he winked playfully. He placed another log on the fire and got back to his feet, moving to where the picnic was set up. "It's not always you get to have an inside picnic in a castle after all."

Chloe

“It’s really not. And to think we can come back here whenever we want.” Chloe went to where everything was set and sat down. Her long skirt smoothed over her legs after she tucked them to the side. “It’s wild,” she picked up a cracker and held it. “We’ve been in this whirlwind of trying to make sure we can make a wedding happen in the time given that we haven’t had any time to ourselves.”

Alex

Alex gave a short nod with his head, agreeing with Chloe. "How about we forget we have a wedding to plan and take some time for us," he suggested as he sat down.

Chloe

The cracker broke in half and Chloe eat the smaller piece first. “That’s a good idea.” She spoke around the bite. “How about you tell me about your family? Have they always lived in Lima?”

Alex

"Not always, my parents moved to Lima when I was a few months old, before that they lived in Nashville. Mom's family still lives around there and well," Alex reached for the bottle of wine, "my dad's family is from around here." He poured both of them a glass. "What about your parents?"

March 14, 2019

Chloe

“Have you ever thought of moving here?” Chloe finally ate the rest of the cracker and decided to get another but to add meat and cheese to it. “My dad and mom are from here. Our family has been here for a long time and we would be considered one of the elders but our wealth didn’t come in until my dad and some people think the money isn’t the same because it’s all tied up with sex.” She laughed. “Didn’t mean to say tied up but it works.”

Alex

"No, not even when my relationship with my parents where strained." Alex placed the bottle back and picked up a cracker. He chuckled. "Yeah, it works... people are far too close-minded at times. Want to bet that at least half the members of the higher counsel either been to one of your dad's clubs or bought a toy in one of your family's stores?" He put some cheese on his cracker and took a bite.

Chloe

This caused her to look at him with a small frown. “It’s strained?” Chloe is the type of person who was really close to her parents. They were practically best friends. “Oh. I will love to bet on that. Probably own most of the porns, too.” She watched him eat and set down her cracker and went to drink the water he poured. “Have you been to one of the stores?”(edited)

Alex

"Yeah, it was. They never approved of Melanie, in their eyes she was from the wrong side of town, came from a wrong social standing. So needless to say they weren't too pleased about my intentions to marry her," he explained," he explained, "It took years before they finally came around, and we got close again." He sighed. He loved his parents, and he knew that without their help after Mel's death he'd probably still be a mess, so he was grateful to have them back in his life again. He glanced up. "Can't say I have, but I did visit the online store ones or twice."

Chloe

"Ugh!" Chloe said as she put her glass down and moved to sit more in front of him. "Parents are always trying to get involved with how they feel about the people you're seeing. I had that with Marcus which I think is why all of the stuff was so fucked up with me in the first place. They put him with Quinn Fabray because of how powerful and respected the Fabrays are. I'm sure of it because that's just how Richard Jones is." Chloe rarely spoke badly about people, not unless it was warranted. "How long ago did Melanie die?" She didn't know how to asked this question but she wanted to know. "I helped with that site. It was fun."

Alex

Alex gave a small smile as she moved. "Did you and Marcus date before the couples got matched?" his eyes narrowed at the mention of Richard Jones, ever since the man's reply to his question he liked the man even less than before. "I can see him do that. Mess with his own son's happiness to better the Jones name. That man truly only cares about wealth, social standing and that people obey that fucked up wedding law." He reached for his glass, taking a sip. "Almost ten months ago. Though at times it feels like yesterday." Talking about Mel was painful, still, but Chloe had a right to know these things. "Really? In that case, my compliments. You are full of surprises aren't you?"

Chloe

She nodded. "Off and on for a long time. We broke up before I left for Italy. When I came back I saw he and Quinn were matched. We wanted to have a final goodbye, with us being together again, and it got out and I know it fucked this up with him and Quinn. Which I feel terrible about because I do want him to have an easy marriage with her." Chloe sighed out and laid a hand the blanket and looked at the fire. "Ten months is still so fresh. And then you found out you were matched to Laura not too far from that. You haven't even had a chance to fully grieve." Chloe looked back at him, still with that small frown of hers. "I like to think I am. Always keep myself doing something."

Alex

Alex listened while she talked. "That must have been quite the shock to get home too." He looked at her. "Hey, I get you feel terrible about it but you're not the only one who screwed it up, Marcus did too. Did you guys tell Quinn that, that it was a final goodbye?" He didn't know what else to say or ask about it. "I hope they can work things through and come to an understanding. He nodded and reached for a fork, so he had something to do with his hand. "It probably sounds strange but being matched with Laura, it helped so much in getting my life back on track. I was a mess right after Mel died," he looked down, "Knowing that Faith's birthday is coming up soon; it brings it back." He tipped his head as he looked at her, seeing that small frown. "I'm fine. Or as okay as one can be. I got my good days and every now and then I've got a bad one," he assured her. "It's good to keep busy, doing different things. Do you have any other plans aside from opening your own club?

Chloe

This wasn’t Chloe’s proudest moment and she shook her head. “We kept it to ourselves but the gossip blog had someone mention us disappearing and it spiraled. Quinn was told after it was found out which made it one thousand times worse.” As soon as she let that settle she added, “But know I’m not going to do that to you. I’m committed to this marriage and to you. I don’t want you to think I’ll get with Marcus again.” This pained her but she meant it. “That makes me happy Laura was able to help. I’m sorry she’s not the one you’re marrying because she was there for you in a way that helped and you two were hot together. And I bet Faith adored the hell out of her.” Chloe said as she reached over and touched his hand. “If you ever need a distraction or want me to take Faith for awhile when you’re having one of those bad days, let me know. I want to be there for you. And yes. I do. I’m expanding the studio so I can add an actual stage for shows.”

Alex

"Things always turn ugly the second a gossip blog picks up on a story, doesn't it?" It was one of the reasons Alex choose to live in Columbus for so long; there he was just Alex, in Lima, he always felt that he was Alexander Cross, the oldest child off while growing up. "I honestly hope they can work things out between them. Are you on speaking terms with Quinn at all these days? He nodded. He could feel the honesty in her words. "That's good to know. And I am too, committed to this marriage and you that is." An honest laugh fell from his lips. "We were hot together? That's," he chuckled as a twinkle reached his eyes, "that's quite the compliment? Yeah, she did." He turned his hand under her touch, giving hers a soft squeeze. "I will," he promised. He leaned into her space, his dimples showing as he smiled softly. "Enough sad talk, which by the way, thank you for listening. Now tell me about all about this plan of you to expand the studio with a stage. What brought that on?"

Chloe

“It really does! And I usually let those things not bother me but it fucked things up for Mar and I just got so angry. It wasn’t anyone’s business to know!” Chloe hated how it felt that Quinn hasn’t moved past that, with her not spending much time with Marcus or making plans for their future. “Quinn and I never talked in the first place. She’s one of those who thinks I don’t belong because of where our money comes from. She’s been vocal about it. But fuck her, you know. I refuse to let people like her get under my skin. If she wants to be ugly and judgmental that’s on her. Not me.” Chloe’s fingers pressed between Alex’s and she brought her other hand over to move her fingertip across the skin of his fingers as she looked down at them. “It’s the truth. Both of you were sexy. I really liked Laura. She’s one of those rare honest people in Lima. Just wish she was still around.” Her fingers went to his ring finger and she added, “I should get you a ring but maybe wait until we get married? It isn’t like we have a long time until we’re back here and committing to each other. Hopefully for more than the required three years. I’m just that type of person who sees marriage as sacred and not some contract. Even when it technically is. But it’s more along the lines of fate. That this is the world we live in for a reason. That good and bad things happen and things play out in life and that we just go for it.” Chloe looked back up at him with a small smile after she spoke. “And do you really want me to get into studio talk? I can talk your ear off about it.”

Alex

"All you can do is be there for Marcus, be his friend and help him get through those three years. And indeed, fuck her and everybody who's that judgemental," he agreed. "She's not worth having high blood pressure over." He smiled, looking down at their joined hands. "That was one of the things I liked about her; she was honest. And from what I see from you so far, you got that same quality. Plus you're also hot and sexy," he added playfully, softly tugging her hand, wordlessly asking her to move closer. He smiled. "You want to put on a ring on me? I thought that was my job." As much as he tried, he couldn't stop smiling when she mentioned that she saw marriage as something sacred. "I feel the same. And that's what I want for us, a real marriage." He chuckled. "Well, it's either letting you talk about the studio because I know how much it means to you or finally give in to this almost overwhelming desire to kiss you..."

Chloe

The more he talked the more Chloe smiled because ever since they started to talk, before they were arranged, she felt they got each other. There was no raised eyebrow or questioning her point of view. “Aww. I know I’m both those things but it makes me happy to hear you say it. Also I think men who wear rings are super sexy and maybe I want to do something different.” She winked at him and went ahead and took his tug as her cue to move and get in his lap. Chloe moved carefully over to him and sat sideways, draping her arm around him. “Sorry. I like to make myself comfy. You can always push me off if I’m being too forward.” She joked with a laugh. Her hand went to his chest and Chloe’s eyes settled on his once again. “I’ve wanted you to kiss me for such a long time. Even before we were matched.” She admitted while her fingers walked up his chest until the palm settled on his shoulder.

Alex

"I'm all for doing things differently," Alex mentioned as she sat in his lap. He chuckled at her joke as he let his hand slide along her back, resting it on her hip to keep her close. "Is that so? Since before we were matched," he repeated, slowly leaning down to close the distance between their lips. "Let's end that waiting right now," he smiled as he brushed his lips over hers.

#para:004 #p:chloe

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back-and-totheleft · 4 years ago

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After the Fall

In Oliver Stone’s new film, World Trade Center, a rescue worker stands atop a pile of steaming rubble, planning his descent into the inferno below. “I need a medic up here,” he yells. “Anybody a medic?”

“I used to be a medic,” comes a voice from the darkness.

A tiny figure scrambles up the base of the hill like a large bug. As he passes into the light, we see that it’s Frank Whaley, an actor who got his start with appearances in Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors and JFK.

“My license lapsed,” the figure says. “I had a few bad years. But I’m good.”

Such is the legacy of Stone — a towering figure in modern film who always seems to be wrangling his own personal demons — that it is almost impossible not to read a scene like that autobiographically. A three-time Oscar winner as both writer (Midnight Express) and director (Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July), Stone has spent much of the past dozen years surrounded by controversy or chaos: His satirical tabloid blitzkrieg Natural Born Killers caused novelist John Grisham to accuse him of engendering real-life murders. Nixon, his oddly sympathetic portrait of the ex-president, eluded liberals and conservatives alike. The jumpy, kinetic editing style he employed in the day-for-noir U Turn and the pro-football pageant Any Given Sunday inspired longtime Stone critic Elvis Mitchell to label the latter “the world’s first ADD epic.”

Then the first of two HBO documentaries (Comandante) on Fidel Castro was shelved for being too sympathetic, while a subsequent portrait of Yasser Arafat (Persona Non Grata) saw Stone’s crew fleeing Ramallah four hours before the Israeli army attacked the Palestinian leader’s compound. (A third film, expected to profile either Kim Jong-Il or Saddam Hussein, was canceled.) He has been arrested twice — in 1999 and 2005 — for DUI and possession of marijuana, respectively. During an appearance at HBO’s “Making Movies That Matter” panel at Lincoln Center in October 2001, he allegedly made inflammatory remarks regarding the September 11 attacks, earning him scorn and ridicule in The New Yorker and elsewhere. Most painfully, when Stone, in 2004, finally realized his 20-year obsession to make Alexander, a sweeping history of Alexander the Great filmed on three continents, the film failed to find a domestic audience.

Now comes World Trade Center, a delicate, contained and extremely powerful evocation of our 2001 national trauma, starring Nicolas Cage and Michael Peña as John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno, New York City Port Authority cops who were miraculously excavated from beneath the glowing rubble of Building No. 7. In an odd way, it brings Stone’s career full circle: His first student film, Last Year in Viet Nam, made at NYU in 1970 (for film professor Martin Scorsese), opens with a panorama of southern Manhattan and what would have been the Twin Towers, except that they weren’t completed until January 1972. But in another respect, World Trade Center may be Stone’s most subversive film yet — a rousing, populist, patriotic adventure story that kicks the legs out from under the right-wing criticism marshaled against him. It could prove the ultimate irony that the bête noire of American conservatives — the man who profiled right-wing death squads in Salvador, My Lai–like atrocities in Platoon, hostile takeovers in Wall Street, the anti-war movement in Born on the Fourth of July and, most notably, the fecund proliferation of Kennedy-assassination conspiracy theories in JFK — may find his most enthusiastic audience among the very partisans who have heretofore decried his lifetime of work. As no less a cultural observer than Mel Gibson said of Stone in the 1997 thriller Conspiracy Theory, “He’s a disinformation junkie for them. The fact that he’s still alive says it all. He probably should be dead, but he’s not.”

In person, Stone has an infectious laugh, seems genuinely engaged and takes the full measure of my questions before answering, at which point his ideas often come so fast they seem to be skipping across the surface of the conversation. He’s also the most fun kind of intellectual, in that he perpetually appears to be trying to figure himself out. Briefly a classmate of George W. Bush’s at Yale, he seems — at least on the evidence of our wide-ranging, three-hour discussion — to have absorbed a good deal more of its freshman syllabus. We spoke at his West L.A. editing suite, where he is currently preparing a three-hour, 45-minute DVD-only “road show” version of Alexander, complete with intermission.

L.A. WEEKLY: Where were you on the morning of September 11, 2001?

OLIVER STONE: L.A. Asleep. My wife put the TV on.

And what did you think was happening?

It was sensational. It was exciting. It was horrifying. It reminded me in its barbarity and ferocity of the French Revolution — the tumbrels, heads falling. And I had feelings of anger in me, and vengeance. I had a fight with my son, actually, because he was much more objective about it: “How do you know? Don’t assume anything. You’re acting like the mob.” But there were other feelings as well. You know, I realize I’m an older person; I’ve seen Vietnam and a lot of death and shit. Oklahoma City was horrible. JFK’s assassination. Watergate. The 2000 election. We’ve been through our times of shit in this country, so this was another version.

World Trade Centeris very powerful — emotionally powerful. I had a very visceral reaction to it.I think it’s obviously the film, but it’s also more than the film — it’s the fact that the subject matter is so loaded. If you make a film about fire jumpers, and a fire jumper comes to see it, he’ll say, “Well, you got this part right, you got this part wrong.’?” With this film, we’re all fire jumpers. It’s also very different from a lot of your other films — it’s gentle and contained and quiet. I’m wondering if you had to devise a different approach because the subject matter was so delicate.

I just want to say first that the way I look at myself — it’s not necessarily in the result — but with every film, I really have made an effort to make each one an island unto itself in this little sea that we go around in our ships. And every island has been a destination, a stop for a period of time. I’ve tried to take a different style for every film, because it’s the story that comes first, and the subject dictates the style. Even with something like Natural Born Killers, which seems very stylistic and eccentric, it’s still the content that I think is valid and important. With this film, certain things presented themselves: Obviously, the sensitivities of everyone involved, but ultimately that’s the sky around the project. With JFK, for instance, there were his children to think of, Jackie was still alive, Teddy Kennedy. Blowing his head off in Dealey Plaza didn’t go down well with them either. But there was a bigger story to tell.

Here we were limited by movement, so we worked out a style by which, methodically, the film would go in and out of light: Light would fight with the dark, or rather, light would try to make it up to the dark. Claustrophobia is an issue with a film like this. I did Talk Radio, so I know that feeling of being on one set the whole time. Also, Born on the Fourth of July: That was a very contained movie, in a way, because we had a young man in a wheelchair in the second half, where there’s very little movement. When I read this script, I said, “How do we make this movie watchable? How do we make the tension manageable for a mainstream audience?”

It may surprise a lot of people that you’re not using a lot of shock cuts, moving around inside the frame — what you’ve termed your “cubist” style.

Well, where can you move in a hole? A hole is limited. Finding the right point of view in the hole is crucial.

You once said about Platoon?, “I felt like if I didn’t do it now, I’m going to forget.” We’re five years out from 9/11 now, and there is much public hand-wringing about whether it’s too soon yet to deal with this subject matter.

I think it’s a bogus question. The consequences of that day are far worse today. More people have died since then because of the war on terror. There’s more war, there’s more fear, and there is constitutional breakdown left and right. Have the good sense to go to the psychiatrist quickly. If you’ve been raped, talk to somebody about what that day itself was like before you build up all this armor.

You pursued this film, correct?

Yes. Petitioned. My agent, Bryan Lourd, a man of taste, said to me, “Look, I read this script two weeks ago — it stays with me, it’s emotional. I don’t know if it will make a dime, I don’t know if I can get it financed, but just read it.” So I read it, and I said, “My God, I never thought of this — to do 2001 this way.” I knew [World Trade Center producers] Michael Shamberg and Stacy Sher. But no one would make it; Universal dropped it at the [proposed] budget. I was doing other things, I wasn’t stopping my life. But then it came back around. Paramount was just coming into being [under new management]. We were very lucky, because that new studio energy was coming in, and they wanted to make it so badly that it happened right away.

And did you talk with the producers about politics — if there would be a political viewpoint that informed the story?

There was no room for it, because John McLoughlin and Will Jimeno were not interested in politics, per se. They don’t talk about politics like you and I do. Their lives are not determined by it; they live according to what is given them. So it never entered into the equation. I loved the script [by Andrea Berloff] as it was. I loved the inspiration of the story. So I vowed to stay inside those parameters.

New York is probably the most liberal city in America, and yet the 9/11 attack has been so politicized, its imagery considered so proprietary, that right-wing skepticism has been mounting steadily against you since this project was announced. A story in The New York Times said the film is being strategically marketed to right-wing opinion leaders using the PR firm that advised the Swift Boat Veterans group. It even quoted the conservative National Review Web site as saying, “God Bless Oliver Stone.”

I knew [the studio] was doing grassroots marketing to everybody — Hispanics, cops, firemen, teachers, church groups. I didn’t know that they had hired a specific firm; I found out that day. I’m pleased they like it, because it goes beyond politics.

Could you foresee a left-wing backlash against the film?

If people on the right are responding with their hearts, I’m all for it. But if they’re making it into a political statement, it’s wrong. Those on the left might say, “Oh, this is a simplified context, and these are simplistic working-class values. You’re not showing a wider political context.” Or secondly, that we’re sentimentalizing the event — which would be unfair, because I think there’s a lot of grit there. But this is a populist film. We’ve said that from the beginning. In our hearts, it was a Frank Capra type of movie. And he didn’t necessarily get great notices.

In an odd way, I was reminded of Preston Sturges Hail the Conquering Hero — a wartime comedy that pokes fun at the notion of patriotism and, by extension, patriotic movies but which, by the end, almost subversively, fills you with this patriotic fervor. I’m wondering if you see this as your “Nixon in China” moment: Only the director of Nixon and JFK could get away with a film where the most heroic character is an ex-Marine who consults with his pastor before putting himself in harm’s way.

That character, Dave Karnes, is an unlikely hero. He goes to church — that’s a documented thing; he checks with his pastor in a born-again church before he goes down to Manhattan. He evaded the authorities. Get it done; that’s a Marine thing. I think you can argue that the Marine is an ambivalent character, because at the end of the movie, this sense of vengeance is what fuels the wrong war in Iraq.

But for him it’s the right war.

For him it’s the right war. That’s correct. I think if you really look at JFK or at Nixon, which are the two political films I did uncensored in my career — which is amazing unto itself — JFK is neither right nor left, and was attacked equally by the left, who did not like the Kennedy figure of 1963. It was done in the centrist tradition of American dissent: It questioned government and the authority of government. So I was taken aback that the right made such a big issue out of it. I suppose, because they were in office [when the film came out]. But they had never done that historically. They would have been on the side of the investigation; [Barry] Goldwater may well have been. JFK was not a bunch of fantasies strung together. It involved an enormous amount of research — as much as World Trade Center, if not more.

You could make the same argument about Nixon. You took the dominant political figure in our lifetime and gave him the Shakespearean treatment his life cried out for.

It was a psychological point of view. The right wing thought it was going to be a hatchet job; instead, it made him a human being. Unfortunately, in my career, I have spoken out between films, and that’s what’s gotten confused with the films themselves. I think the focus has been lost. Somewhere along the line, I guess, I said, “Look: I’m a filmmaker, but I’m also John Q. Citizen, and things piss me off. I have a right to say, if people ask me and they’re interested, what I fucking think.” And that’s the line I’ve always gotten in trouble with. It’s always between the films, if you look at the statements I’ve made. There’s nothing in the films themselves, as far as I know, that’s really offensive politically.

How much of the criticism against you do you think is organized for partisan political gain?

I’ve always wondered that — especially in the ’90s, after the JFK situation. You have to wonder: Will it come out one day in a government file? You hear about those programs from the ’50s and the ’60s. I was so grateful that Michael Moore came along. He helped me.

He seems to enjoy it. Maybe it’s the counterpart to how the left treats Charlton Heston.

Charlton Heston once said in an interview, “People like Oliver Stone would never hire me in the new Hollywood.” And I went out of my way on Any Given Sunday to hire him. I loved him. I said, “Forget politics, I love your character.” Political reputation pigeonholes you, and in a society that’s very busy, it’s an easy way to get rid of having to think too much about people and what they’re saying. I’m a dramatist; I’m a humanist. I protest.

There’s one line in World Trade Center — I think we hear it on a TV monitor in an office at the Port Authority — where the announcer says, “. . . the shock of the explosion that was coincidental with the two towers coming down,” and then you move on to something else. Was the suggestion that an unexplained explosion might have accompanied the towers’ demise the one seed of doubt you intentionally planted in an otherwise apolitical movie?

Well, I think that all reality is questionable, as you know. Frankly, I’m not an expert on that at all. And I haven’t pursued it, because I think the consequences of where we are now are far worse. But even if there was a conspiracy, it wouldn’t change where we are now. We’re into another place, where there’s more war, more terror, more bankruptcy, more debt, above all more constitutional breakdown and more fear than ever before. That’s very serious. And we’re on the edge of possibly something bigger and very dangerous. Richard Clarke’s book [Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror], at least, is about a true conspiracy that we know existed, of a small group who took over the government and did it their way — manipulated, created the war. It’s 30 or 40 people, right?

Sy Hersh says it’s 11 guys.

It was a conspiracy, and it was basically at the top. It’s Cheney and Rumsfeld influencing Bush. Cheney and Rumsfeld go back to the Ford administration, and when they got their way, they kicked butt. That’s a great story. But that’s not even all of it. When you’ve got a guy like Representative Pete Hoekstra from Michigan, who was a friend of the Bush administration — who had approved of the Patriot Act, the eavesdropping, the taxes, the bank records, all of it — saying in the press that there’s something worse that he’s pissed off about, because they hadn’t consulted him. Something worse? I mean, all the cards are not on the table, right? This is a big story. And we’re living it. How can you write about it? We’re fucking rocking in the boat. It’s like trying to write a great war novel when you might be going into World War II.

Were you at Yale the same time Bush was?

I was in the same class, yeah. I don’t remember him. I was never in a fraternity. I went twice — I dropped out one year and then went back for half of a second year and dropped out.

But at one point Bush requested to meet you, didn’t he?

Yeah, I met him. It was a political breakfast speech here in California at a club, the Republican right wing. They invited me — they’ve always had fun with me, I don’t know why — and it was a big hotel room and a speech about tough love and justice in Texas. He was governor then, around ’98 or so. I swear, I knew in that room on that day that he was going to be president. There was just no question. He had that confidence, and they adored him. There was an organized love for him. He asked for me to come up to the podium and we had a one-on-one. I was in the Bush spotlight — that thing where he stares at you and he gets to know you a little bit.

Assigns you a nickname.

There was one funny line. He knew I’d been in Vietnam. Actually, I didn’t know he’d been at Yale. He told me he’d been in my class; it was a surprise to me. But then he said he’d had a buddy who had been to Vietnam who’d been killed. “Buddy,” he said. It was funny — it was on his mind, he raised it. And it was the way he looked at me: I just felt like, boy, I bet you he’d rather his buddy had come home than me. But he was very friendly, very charming — a very sociable man.

Have you ever thought about going into politics — running for office? Would you consider doing that in a later part of your life?

Not seriously, no.

Orson Welles wrote a weekly political newspaper column during WWII — he was friends with FDR through Sumner Welles, a distant relative of his and a presidential adviser, and at one point he considered running for the Senate from California or his native Wisconsin.

Politics is about raising money and being popular and shaking a lot of hands and spending a lot of time with people. Those are not my strengths. It would be exhausting and would completely destroy my ability to do what I do.

You were pro-Vietnam before you enlisted in the infantry, right? You were fairly conservative?

Yes.

So we could say that you spent the entire 1960s across the political divide from most of what you’ve now come to stand for?

My story is complicated. I did write a novel about being 19 called A Child’s Night Dream. My parents divorced when I was 14, and being the only child, there was no family to go back to. Basically, going to Vietnam was really throwing myself to the wolves. It was a form of rebellion and suicide.

I’ve read a quote to the effect of “I felt like I had to atone for the act of imagination.” Was it actually the failure of the novel that sent you over the edge?

After I left Yale the second time and finished the novel — I was writing the novel instead of going to class, and that’s why I flunked out — my father was supporting me, and that’s an impossible situation: 19 years old, your father is furious at you for the tuition that he’s lost, and you’re living in his apartment trying to finish a novel. It’s like Jack Kerouac moving back home with his mother. But I really believed in it: I was insane with passion. It was the only thing I had. I had no woman friends in my life. I had nothing to support me beyond that. And when that failed, I went into the Army with the idea of “Let God sort it out, whoever I am.” It’s egregious to think that you can be on the level of Mailer or any of your heroes — Hemingway, or Joyce; I was into Joyce heavily at the time.

Part of the fun of watching someone like you working without a net, from a distance, is charting the rises and falls of your career. And sometimes there are films that don’t hit right, that suffer because of the moment or the context — the sky around it, as you put it. I’m thinking specifically of Nixon, which was a commercial failure, but seems to get more sophisticated every time I see it. Or, more recently, Alexander.

I’ve had three big setbacks, in terms of being completely dismissed: Heaven and Earth, Nixon — by many people, at least — and Alexander. On Alexander, it was just devastating, because in America and England, the numbers were so tough. It wasn’t just that people didn’t like it. It was ridiculed. It was destructive criticism. Meanwhile, in the rest of the world we were connecting, we were among the top 20 films of that year in the foreign market. We did better than four of the five Oscar nominees abroad. It was well respected.

Why didn’t Alexander connect? Do we agree that it didn’t connect with English-speaking audiences?

I like the director’s cut better than the first version, because I had more time to prepare it. And the structure is different. It wasn’t because of the homosexuality — that’s a red herring. The mother’s back story and father’s back story, which are really essential, don’t come in until later. We’re doing a third, expanded version now — we’re going all out. This is not for theatrical; it’s for the people who love the film who want to see more of it. It’s the Cecil B. De Mille treatment — three hours and 45 minutes. What I’m doing is going back and showing the whole thing in its sumptuousness, really going with the concept that it had to be an old-fashioned movie, with an intermission, like a road show. Be a showman, instead of trying to be a responsible filmmaker. Go all out on this one. This is my Apocalypse Now, my De Mille epic. [The first time] I was trying to step up to the plate, so to speak. I should have pulled it back, taken an extra year like Marty did with Gangs of New York. But it would have cost a lot of money.

In Oliver Stone’s America, the documentary included with the DVD box set of your films, you say, “I’ve always admired Alexander because of the momentum and the speed with which he traveled and conquered. In my small metaphoric way, I would say the countries were films, and I moved through them like him . . . he’s striking everywhere. I think it was great. We had a great run. But it’s definitely a new phase.” Is Alexander the figure you most closely identify with?

I am a Method director to a certain degree. I do become part of what I shoot. And I think with Alexander, the perception is of hubris, certainly — “Alexander the Great? Who the fuck is he? He thinks he’s Alexander.” I could see that coming. But I always knew who Oliver Stone was. I never lost track of that. And I made the film humbly, in 94 fucking days on three continents. I ran the crew like I always run the crew. Nothing changed in my habits. I walked in the deserts, we shot in a sandstorm once, and it was the same old Oliver who did Salvador. Hubris is taking 110 days on some stupid comedy. That’s an insult to filmmaking the way I was raised. I’m sticking to NYU principles, and I still do to this day. Movies are a tradition; we didn’t invent it — we take it from somebody else and pass it on.

But with Alexander, you faced a challenge like you’ve never faced before, because no matter how bruising the attacks on JFK and Nixon, your core audience was always still with you. For whatever reason, Alexander failed to connect with an audience.

Yeah. In America.

In America. I don't wish to judge it; this is an empirical observation.

No, it didn't connect. Alexander is the high point of my life, and it always will be. I’m not asking for universal love on that; it’s just impossible. It’s not paced to the American style, nor is he a conventional hero. He’s filled with doubts. But Alexander is a beautiful story, and I think I did him well. I mean, I wouldn’t have released it [otherwise]. But I can’t give up; I would never give up. I would be all wrong in my assessments of myself as I work. You have to hear your own self, follow your own drama, or whatever Thoreau said long ago at Walden Pond. [“Follow your genius closely enough, and it will not fail to show you a fresh prospect every hour.”] Alexander was a huge setback for me, and it certainly hurt me in this business. But you have to understand that people have been saying bad things about me for years. I don’t listen; I have to try to keep going.

I don’t want to make specious connections, but you’ve had several high-profile drug arrests in the last few years. Before that, you were making supernihilist films in an edgy, frenetic style. I'm wondering if these are all moving parts of the same phenomenon.

I’ve smoked dope and drunk alcohol most of my life, okay? Getting pulled over and arrested is a fault, it’s a mistake — a wake-up call. I did get busted a couple of times. One was at a roadblock, so it’s not like I was endangering anybody’s life. The other time, I got pulled over by a civilian cop; I was actually busted for driving too slow. And when the tests came back, I was below the intoxication level. Nobody knows that, because it never got published that way. I should get a chauffeur is what I fucking should do. [Laughs.]

But nobody cares if you smoke pot. They care if it affects the work, if it’s part of a larger problem.

Okay, but I don’t feel bad. I got heavier, physically, at certain points, and I think that gives the appearance of degradation, like Jim Morrison. But I did have a pre-diabetic condition through my mother, and I was on too much sugar. Any Given Sunday, I love that movie, but it was more effort than you think — it was like a three-ring circus, to make five football games in five stadiums work. It took so much energy. There were some problems with the crew on that film. So by the end of that movie, my doctor said I was too stressed, and at my age it was dangerous. There were some issues of medications and stuff, no question about it. But sports people love that movie. With Alexander, there’s a fan site where there are people who have seen it 50 times. They go to the sites in Macedon. They love the romanticism of it. So it’s confusing to me. I’ve tried every fucking time to get it right, even if I haven’t been in my best physical shape. I will get it right. Not everyone is going to agree with me, but I’m going to get it right.

With World Trade Center, it's your first time to deal with studio financing in a decade; you look better, healthier. Has your life changed? Is this a new start?

Your story is a journalistic narrative, and it’s a good one, about Oliver coming back after Alexander, and how there’s a change in his life. And I’ve somewhat agreed with it, but I’ve also pointed out that my methods have stayed the same. But it is about your storyline, in a way — about life. If you go to film school, and you think about your career traditionally, you arc up, in the sense that your budgets get bigger, the stars, whatever. There’s a nice arc to a man’s life. You make your better films later — it’s horrible if you’re Orson Welles, if you make your best film first. And Alexander was a chance to do something on another level entirely. So I reached a peak of ambition. And the ambition was perhaps not matched by my execution, although there are points in the execution that do match the ambition, I think. So then it died a metaphoric death. Point of view died with it, as it died when Heaven and Earth came out. That [movie] was a very sensitive side of myself that I loved — it was tender, and the woman was tender. And it was ridiculed and killed, and part of me, you know . . . those feelings were hurt and eradicated for a while. Same thing with Nixon. You want to get rid of the person after you finish. You want to go back to being who you are, but you’re no longer the same person, because your journey has changed.

And part of me did die [with Alexander] — that part that was enamored of “my very important storyline,” end of quote. Me being the storyline. I played it out. I did all my biographical figures. I have no need to be John or Will. I had a need to be Ron Kovic. I had a need to be Alexander. I had a need to be Nixon and Morrison and Garrison. That’s the change. So now I can be myself, maybe. I can be more authentic to myself. I think there was an attraction to go from the past into the contemporary world in its most hellish moment. It’s like I dropped out and I couldn’t get back in, until by going back to 2001, I could come back into this era. I feel liberated, in the sense that, not that it would be next, but I feel I could do a movie about those next five years. Not that I think it’s complete yet — I think there’s a lot going on that we don’t know about in the government. But I think there’s something in the air. I smell it, and I feel fresh again, having done something — my new, 24-hour, humble microcosm of that day. Wherever I go with World Trade Center, it’s going to spin off to wherever I go next.

-Paul Cullum, “After the Fall,” LA Weekly, Aug 9 2006 [x]

#oliver stone #la weekly #World Trade Center #alexander #arrests #dui #drugs #September 11 #politics

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hope-for-olicity · 8 years ago

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Always a Bridesmaid 9/?

Thank you so much for all the lovely comments and likes. I'm so glad so many people are enjoying this story. As much as I've enjoyed writing this story, I feel I should warn you that it is coming close to an end. I suspect based on my planning there will only be one or two more chapters.

All chapters, including this one are available on AO3.

Thanks so much to @mel-loves-all for the beautiful edit and to @almondblossomme for proofing and suggestions!

9. Better Place

“Oh my God, I have to call Sara!”

“Felicity, is this really what you are thinking about when you are relaxing in the tub with me? Clearly I must be doing something wrong!” Oliver chuckled.

“Oh Oliver, you don’t need to worry about that.” She smiled and blushed thinking about their recent activity.

“I don’t know what you are thinking Ms. Smoak, but I suspect I’d like it.”

“I’m sure you would,” she looked back and winked at him before settling back his arms as the jets swirled warm water around them.

“So, you want to call Sara? You do know she’s on her honeymoon?”

“They are getting back today! And I promised I’d tell her the moment I knew I was moving to Star City.” It was a lazy Sunday morning, a week after the wedding and she was rather enjoying Oliver’s tub and Oliver’s house and well, Oliver.

“Well, you should absolutely do that,” Oliver began kissing Felicity’s neck. “Later.”

Felicity moved to give him more access. “You are right, I’ll call her later. I’m a little,” she let out a small moan, “distracted right now.”

*****

Felicity: Are you home?

Sara: Yes

Sara: Are you in Star City?

Felicity: Yes

Felicity: Can I come over?

Sara: YES

Felicity: On my way

“Texting Sara?” Oliver smiled as he walked into the kitchen.

“Yes, she’s home. I’m going to head over there for a bit.”

“Sounds good, I’m going to head into the campaign office. We are heading into the final stretch and while I’m ahead in the polls, I don’t want to become complacent. Not that Eric would allow it to happen. I can’t believe the election is this Thursday!”

Felicity leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed him. “I know you are going to be great. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help. I’ll head back to Central City from Sara’s but I’ll call you tonight. And I’ll be back on Thursday for the election.”

Oliver made a pouty face.

“Don’t look at me like that. You know I feel the same and won’t be long until I live in Star City.”

“About that, I was thinking maybe, you could live here.”

Felicity felt like the wind had been knocked out of her. It’s not that she hadn’t thought of living with Oliver in his beautiful house. The wrap around porch alone! But they were so new. What if he changed his mind about her? “Sure, I’ll think about.”

Felicity quickly rushed out. She really didn’t want to say the wrong thing, but she had no idea what the right thing was.

*****

When Oliver arrived at campaign headquarters he was relieved to see his sister there helping out on the phones.

He motioned for her to come by his office, she held up one finger to signal one minute, once she got off the phone.

Oliver sat at his desk with head in hands. He heard the door close and looked up to see Thea.

“What is wrong?”

“I think I screwed up big time with Felicity.”

“No. No, you did not.” Thea shook her head. “See, there is no way that happened. Because, dear brother, that is not ALLOWED to happen.”

“Whether you allow or not I think I did it anyway.”

“Okay,” Thea took a seat across from Oliver, “tell me everything. Well, not everything, leave the sex parts out but everything else.”

“We were just saying good bye, she’s going to drop by to see Sara before heading back to Central City and I got a looking sookie that she had to leave and she kindly reminded me soon she would be living in Star City.”

“I fail to see how you screwed things up! Girls like to know they are missed.”

“Thanks Thea but I haven’t gotten to the part where I screwed up yet.”

“Oh, continue.”

“Well, I guess I was little excited and I didn’t think things through and I suggested she move in with me…” Oliver’s voice kind of squeaked at the end.

“YOU ASKED HER TO MOVE IN WITH YOU?” Thea jumped up from her chair and began to pace.

“Don’t shout.”

“Sorry, it’s just so unlike you. You are rarely in a relationship and now you are asking a woman to move in with you after what, a fews weeks?”

“Almost a month.” Oliver said defensively. “And she’s not just any woman. She’s Felicity Smoak, she is THE WOMAN.”

Thea rushed over to hug Oliver. “It’s going to be okay. Now, tell me, what did she say?”

Oliver pulled back from the hug. “Thank you. She said she’d think about it but she looked totally freaked out.”

“That’s not so bad Oliver”

“Not so bad? I freaked her out and now I’m not going to see her for DAYS.”

“Jeez Oliver, she didn’t drop off the face of the earth! She’s just gone back to Central City. You can phone her. Why don’t you call her tonight, tell her you are sorry for moving too fast. Be honest. She will understand.”

“I hope so or I’ve just screwed up the most important thing in my life.”

*****

Sara took Felicity into a tight bear hug the moment she opened the door. “I’m so glad to see you. I guess things are still going well with Oliver if you are here.”

“Oh Sara!” Felicity burst into tears.

“Oh no, Felicity! Come sit on the couch and tell me all about it!” Sara guided Felicity to sit.

Felicity took off her glasses to wipe her tears away. “Sorry.”

“Sorry? Hey, you never have to apologize for crying! Now, tell me what’s going on. Do I need to beat up Mayor Handsome?”

“No, Oliver is wonderful. He loves me. It’s me. Maybe you should beat me up.”

“Felicity, what is going on? And by the way, I’d never beat you up!”

“Oliver has been amazing, I mean really amazing. I’ve never met anyone like him before. He makes me happier than I have ever been.”

“Okay, so why the tears?”

“He’s so good to me Sara. I don’t deserve it. He told me he loved me and I didn’t say it back. Now right before I came here he asked me to move in with him and I freaked out and practically ran out the door. He deserves someone who would be cool with all this. Someone who tells them they love him and is totally cool with moving in with him. Someone who has their shit together and doesn’t freak out. Someone not me.” Felicity looked down at her hands.

“First let me say, as a friend of both you and Oliver - you come first of course - you are the best. Oliver deserves the best and you are the best for him. Do you hear me? This is important because you are not leaving here until we knock this self-doubt out of you. So, no he’s not too good for you! You deserve the best. You are the most kind, generous, wonderful person I know and I want you to have all the happiness. Oliver gives you happiness and you clearly give him happiness or he wouldn’t have said he loved you, asked you to move or wait to have sex.”

“Oh, we aren’t waiting anymore. Having lots and lots of really good sex. I mean the sex is spectacular Sara. No problem with the sex.” Felicity began to blush.

“Well good. You deserve great sex too! I don’t think Oliver wants anyone but you Felicity and you told me before that you freaked out and he was okay and he is not pressuring you to say I love you.”

“Yes.”

“So, when did he ask you to move in and more importantly does this mean you are moving to Star City?”

“Yes! I’m moving to Star City. Actually, that was the point of my visit to tell you the board voted to move Smoak Technologies to Star City. We are just working out all the details now. I came back this weekend to see Oliver, this is the last week before the election so he can’t exactly come visit me.”

Sara hugged Felicity. “I’m so glad you are moving home.”

“Thanks, me too. It’s just, Oliver suggested we move in together just as I was about to come see you and I suddenly began freaking out. We only just started dating. Is it too soon to move in? Why is he so patient with me? What if he changes his mind about me and I have nowhere to live. I’ve never lived with a boyfriend before. My personal space was always very important to me.”

“Okay, let’s talk about this. First, freak out all you want. This is a freak out friendly zone.” Sara smiled.

“I’m so lucky to have you as my friend.”

“You bet your ass you are! Secondly, he’s patient with you because he loves you. Which also may be why he wants to spend every moment he can with you, hence asking you to move in. He may have just said it without thinking. Trust me, if he knows he caused a freak out, he’ll feel bad. But I think you should think about what you want Felicity.”

“I want Oliver.”

“This I know. There is no rush on this. You should talk to Oliver about all of this and think about what you want. Do you want to live with Oliver? It’s okay if you don’t.”

“I think I do.”

“You think you want to live with Oliver?”

“Yes, I’m just scared.”

“Well, you should tell Oliver that.”

“I will. In fact, I’m going to go tell him right now.”

“You go girl!”

*****

Felicity had never been to Oliver’s campaign office so she was a little nervous entering. When you she walked in, she saw a beehive of activity, people on phones, people looking at a map of city wards. All very busy, but no Oliver.

She was about to ask one of the young volunteers when she heard “Felicity!”

Thea rushed up to her. Felicity smiled, happy to see a familiar face. “Hey Thea, is your brother around?”

“Yes, he’s in his office at the back.” Thea pointed to a room in the back.

Felicity walked through the busy room, gathering courage as she went. She could tell Oliver she was scared. He’d understand, right?

******

Oliver looked up when he heard the knock on the door expecting to see Eric. When he saw Felicity, he smiled. But truth be told he was weary that she wanted to end things? Maybe he had pushed her too soon.

“Hey, do you have a moment?” She asked tentatively.

“For you, always.” He smiled.

“I think we need to talk. There are some things I’d like to say. First, I’m nervous. So, I might say them wrong so please bear with me.”

“Okay,” he nodded encouragingly and got up to shut the door to give them some privacy. “Now, it’s just us. Say whatever you’d like.”

How did he do that? He made her feel safe, secure and loved. Felicity’s eyes welled with tears. Again? She was never this emotional before! And before she could think she said “I love you.”

“Oh, Felicity!” He rushed over and held her face in his hands. “I love you too. Everything is going to be okay. I’m so so sorry, I pushed you this morning. I was just so excited. I don’t want to lose you. You don’t have to live with me.”

Felicity reached up to take his hands and hold them in her own. She smiled. “I want to live with you. I’m just scared. I’ve never lived with a boyfriend before and I was worried, maybe you would change your mind, maybe you could do better, maybe….”

Oliver cut her off. “NO. Do you hear me Felicity? I’m not changing my mind. I love you. I’m not going anywhere and as for better - there is no better than you. You are the best. I understand, why you are scared but I’m all in.”

“I’m all in too.”

Oliver pulled her in for a hug.

*****

Felicity got back to Central City late that night but it was worth it as she was so glad she sorted things with Oliver.

She quickly texted him.

Felicity: Home safely. Bed now.

Felicity: Exhausted

Felicity: I’ll call in the morning

Felicity: Miss you

Felicity: Love you

She smiled as she got ready for bed. She couldn’t wait for Oliver to be in her bed every night.

She heard her phone ring. I guess Oliver didn’t read my texts she thought as she walked over to pick up the phone. But instead of Oliver’s face, she saw her mother’s.

“Mom! Hi! Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine, well better than fine. I’m calling with news!”

“From the tone of your voice, I’m thinking good news?”

“I hope you think so. I’m moving to Star City!”

“Oh, Mom that is the best news!!! I’m so happy! We will be living in the same place again. I never thought that would happen.”

“I’m so glad you are happy. I realized there was nothing keeping me in Vegas anymore and when Quentin suggested I move, I just hopped at the opportunity.”

“I’m so glad Mom! And so glad things are going so well with you and Quentin! You deserve all the happiness.”

“Oh hun, I wish I could hug you! Soon!”

“Yes, very soon.”

“How about you? How was your weekend in Star City?”

“Well, I guess you could say eventful…”

“Oh honey, is everything okay?”

“It is now. I told Oliver I loved him today and we are moving in together. And before you say I’m moving too fast...I think this is the right move for me and the decision has already been made.”

“I would never tell you that you are moving too fast! I’m so proud of you for telling Oliver how you feel and moving in with him, just makes the most sense! Why pay two rents when you are together every night?”

“I can always count on you to be logical Mom.” Felicity yawned. “I’m sorry, I’m going to have to let you go. I’m exhausted and I have to work in the morning.”

“No problem. I’ll give you a call as soon as I have more information on my move.”

“Sound good. Love you Mom.”

“Love you too sweetie.”

After she hung up with her mother she saw the text messages Oliver sent.

Oliver: Love you

Oliver: Miss you more

Oliver: Sleep well

*****

Oliver didn’t get a chance to talk to Felicity much that week as they were both very busy. She was planning the move and he was making as many last minute campaign stops as possible. Before he knew it Election Day had arrived.

Oliver was nervous. He really wanted this. Everyone said he had a decent shot but he was hedging his bets. He sat in his office lost in thought when he heard the click of heels just outside his office.

He looked up to see Felicity, she looked AMAZING and carried a bottle of wine. “Hey,” she walked forward to give him a hug. She held him extra long. “I know you are nervous. I am too. But I thought maybe we could have a glass of wine now to calm our nerves and then drink the rest of the bottle after the results are in.”

“I love the way you think Ms. Smoak.” He said releasing her.

“Here, let me pour us a glass,” she pulled glasses out of her bag.

“You come prepared.” He smiled.

“Always!” Felicity handed him a glass and went to sit down.

Oliver reached out for her hand. “Come sit with me. I’ve missed you and you are too far away in that chair.”

Felicity got up. “Well, I wouldn’t want to be too far away from you.”

“Never.”

“Never.” Felicity repeated, smiling up at Oliver from his lap.

He bent his head down for a kiss. “I missed you. So glad you could come tonight.”

“Oliver, this is one of the most important nights of your life. Thanks for letting me be here with you.”

Eric rushed in “Hey Oliver, they are getting ready to call it.”

The local TV station was carrying the election results so everyone gathered around to watch the TV.

“And the next Mayor of Star City is Oliver Queen!”

The room cheered, Felicity quickly hugged Oliver. She was so proud of him, she could burst.

She quickly texted Sara.

Felicity: Oliver won

Felicity: Plan on

Sara: Plan on

Oliver couldn’t believe it. He won. He actually won. He looked over at Felicity and he felt like the luckiest man alive. She blew him a kiss.

Later that night, they finished the wine and Felicity showed Oliver exactly how proud of him she was.

*****

Oliver woke up the next morning a very happy man. He was smiling when Felicity looked up at him.

“What are you thinking about?”

“About my new job as Mayor and what I’d like to tackle first.”

“I’m so proud of you Oliver. You are a good man. I’m so happy to have you in my life.”

“I’m the luckiest man on earth. I have you in my life and I get to make a difference.”

“So about tonight…”

“Yes, do tell me about tonight. You have been so cryptic about it.”

“I just want to make sure you meet me, on the waterfront at 7.”

“Of course, I’ll meet you. Are you going to tell me what this is about?”

“Nope. You are just going to have to trust me and oh, wear a suit!”

“I can handle that. For now, I’ve got to get ready and go to City Hall. There is paperwork and planning to be done.”

Felicity pouted. “Do you have to go right now? There is a beautiful woman in your bed.”

“Well, maybe they can wait a little…” Oliver smiled as he dove in to kiss Felicity.

*****

When Oliver arrived on the waterfront to meet Felicity he had to admit he was a little nervous but as soon as he saw her he forgot all about being nervous.

She was a vision. She wore a white dress, with a silver faux fur coat, and dangling rhinestone earrings. “You like?”

“Felicity, I love. You are always beautiful. But this. You look STUNNING.”

“You are not looking too bad yourself, Mayor Handsome. Come follow me, your party awaits!”

Oliver followed Felicity a few steps to see an area of the waterfront had been set up with twinkle lights and tables with a band playing and huge banner that said ‘Congratulations Mayor Oliver Queen!” He looked around the room to see all his friends and family, even his parents were there.

“Felicity…”

“You like? We just wanted to celebrate your victory and show you how proud we are of you!” She leaned in to give him a quick kiss.

“Felicity Smoak I love you.”

“And I love you Mayor Oliver Queen!”

Felicity’s outfit for the Victory Party:

|| @almondblossomme || @emmaamelia95 || @mel-loves-all || @coal000 || @green-arrows-of-karamel || @vaelisamaza || @tdgal1 || @laurabelle2930 || @lalawo1 || @oliverfel4 || @felicity-said–yes || @geneshaven || @nalla-madness || @captainolicitysbedroom || @pleasantfanandstudent || @spaztronautwriter || @dmichellewrites || @memcjo || @charlinert || @marytagus || @miriam1779 || @mammashof || @wherethereissmoak || @bringbackianto || @jaspertown || @scu11y22 || @chachurka ||

#Always a Bridesmaid #olicity fanfiction #au #oliver x felicity #olicity #oliver queen #felicity smoak #MyFanfic

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xxeggy-tartxx · 8 years ago

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If you guys notice I was missing last week, that’s correct, I didn’t post anything last week. It’s normal for you to miss me because of course my reviews are as good or maybe just a tiny close to the real chapter Ratana puts up. Life has been hectic lately and I’ve been taking care of things so I totally forgot about Pulse, but I’m back now. Hopefully my schedule becomes stable again and I can post every week. Have some patience and love for me.

Anyway as usual, I will like to pay tributes and give credits where they are due. First off, thank you Ratana Satis for blessing us with this great comic, which I’m sure we’ll spend countless of hours reading and fangirling over the 2 characters. I also want to thank the translators and staffs for doing an awesome job. You can read this on Lezhin or if you’re smart you will find some way to read it for free but I’m not promoting it here.

Okay, let’s get started.

Oh, did I mention that this is a yuri? Well, it is.

Spoiler Alert!!!!

Oh, we start off the chapter with an affair. How lovely.

Oh Olivia, Olivia, Olivia. Don’t speak so soon, you may regret this.

Playmate… that word sounds so derogatory but of course purple hair chick is only here to have fun and spend a night, she ain’t here to look for her soulmate bbbbbut we never know. Right, Ratana?

Okay, although I’m not fond of the psycho ex, I admit she does look delicious. She definitely the type you want to have fun for one night and leave. Sticking around with her just spell disaster.

Then on the other side of town, these two sexy ass girls are enjoying themselves. Well, mainly Lynn giving joy to Mel. 10 out of 10? How about 100 out of 10.

Well, having Lynn by your side is good but having that orgasm was even better right Mel? (^_-)-☆

Aww this is so sad and things haven’t even started yet. Oh my gosh, I don’t think Mel can handle it when Lynn goes into operation.

Alrrrright, so she is ambitious and power hungry. She obsessives with power that she willing to do anything to get to the top. And usually those type of people are the ones that end up alone. They have everything they want but not the one thing they need.

I mean, look!! They look so awkward together. She looks so uncomfortable and he’s tense as hell.

Wow, okay, they don’t look so bad when they’re still innocent, especially her. She actually looks cute with an expression like that.

Hmmm, I don’t know. Maybe it’s just me but I don’t say my whole full name when I introduce myself. Why? Especially to a stranger that I just met, was if they’re the next killer. Giving them the whole name just mean they have the chance to google you and find where you live.

…unless you’re someone from a wealthy background and throwing your last name around is a good chance for you to hook up with chicks. Wow, this guy.

Sigh, back to reality. Seriously, I like her when she’s still young and innocent. She looks so… devilish, like she can eat your soul up if she wants to and she wants to.

This bish, she knows exactly why Olivia is like this. And Olivia gurl, get yourself together.

Seriously?! One night with the ex and you’re hook? Olivia, either it has been a while since you had sex (which I doubt it) or she’s really that good.

And look, Mel is suspecting something. Mel, go after your harem! Your girls are been taken away from you.

Look at Mel’s expression. She totally knows what her psycho ex is up to. Why the hell would Sue asks for Lynn’s file if she’s not up to something bad… I think.

Wrap Up

Can I just say that Ratana has been really nice to us lately. All those good and delicious scenes. Wow, I’m salivating right now. But, but, I feel like Ratana is too nice to us for a reason. I’m always suspicious and when things go too nicely usually there are shits that are about to hit the fan.

Chapter 39, you guys know it, sex, from Mel and Lynn to Olivia and Sue. And damn, Olivia and Sue were getting it on hard. I had to take a couple deep breath before continued reading it. Then, Lynn, totally destroyed Mel. That ecstasy face, it couldn’t be fake and it totally came from the heart. (For Lynn first time, I think, because I always assume she is a virgin until Mel took it. But for Lynn first time, that was so good. She was born with that skills.) I gave her a 100 out of 10 for effort and for result.

On chapter 40, things were slowly coming together and I could tell that more than 3 people would get hurt in the process. Exhibit A, Olivia. Just after one night, she couldn’t get Sue out of her mind. (I’m thinking, damn is she really that good? Is she better than Mel? Olivia and Mel had sex before but Olivia didn’t get this fluster after sex.) Maybe Olivia started to develop some kind of feelings for Sue that she probably didn’t know herself. Then there was also Mel, hitting orgasm but also worried about Lynn because of her condition. If worrying about Lynn was not too much work already, she had to keep an eye on her ex cause she knew Sue was up to no good. Exhibit B: Sue went after Lynn’s medical file. As a director, she had the responsibilities to know about the patients in the hospital and what not, but it was totally suspicious of her to look into Lynn without questioning her motives.

So in conclusion, I can already see a ship forming. From my many years of shipping, I can tell that Olivia and Sue will somehow be ship by someone or something. Ooh, maybe then Olivia will be the one that will help Sue changes back to a nice person or something. And then maybe everyone can have a happy ending.

Credits:

Author: Ratana Satis

Translation: Shompu

QC: Coco Roco

Edit: Alextasha

#Comic #love #pulse #ratana satis #review #yuri

1 note · View note

comicteaparty · 7 years ago

Text

October 19th, 2017 CTP Archive

The archive for the Comic Tea Party chat that occurred on October 19th, 2017, from 5PM - 7PM PDT. The chat focused on Alethia by Kristina Stipetic.

Featured Comment:

Chat:

RebelVampire

Good day everyone~! This week’s Comic Tea Party is now officially beginning. Today we are discussing Alethia by Kristina Stipetic~! (http://alethia.kstipetic.com/index.html) For those new to CTP, discussions about the comic are freeform, so please feel free to bring up whatever you wish. However, every 30 minutes I will be dropping in a discussion question to help those who would like a prompt. These questions are totally OPTIONAL to answer so pay them no mind if you wish~! Remember, constructive criticism is allowed, but the primary focus here is to have fun and appreciate the amazing comics that the community makes~! Each chat a top comment will be picked and featured on an ad for this chat, so let’s have a great discussion~!

With that said, let us begin with this first question~!

QUESTION 1. What is your favorite scene in the comic so far and why?

Mharz

I'm here too!

RebelVampire

hey Mharz

Mharz

yay!

snuffysam

I am here as well

RebelVampire

welcome again @snuffysam ~!

Mharz

It's actually hard to choose there's so many good scenes here.

sskessa

ok i am here i have coffee

MathTans the Pun Prince

Given my tendency to veer towards humour, in terms of a favorite scene it would be when the weird Tetris block appeared, like whaaat. But speaking as an Educator a lot of the "it needs to make SENSE" from #5 rang true for me.

Also hullo. ^^

Mharz

LOOOOL that was funny!

RebelVampire

hi math and sskessa~!

snuffysam

#5 was probably my favorite chapter, at least

Mharz

like oh you're so good at this here's a nice big block. have fun!

MathTans the Pun Prince

The only way to trip up artificial intelligence.

RebelVampire

yeah i liked the random tetris block appearing. but also sympathized with the frustration cause i went through a tetris obsessed period and if the game rando dropped such a block on me id very much wtf

Mharz

Chapter 4 is my favorite so far

MathTans the Pun Prince

Getting sympathy from readers is good.

Mharz

I would've kicked the game.

but it's purpose is to make robots angry so pretty much the game is doing it's job well

Kabocha

Agreed, chapter 4 is DAMN GOOD. It was interesting to see how everyone moved to "ooph, yep, it's okay to let one robot be angry forever because why do we have to go through stress and frustration"

Mharz

yeaaahh

Kabocha

It felt like it was really a good commentary on how people are going to be lazy if they can feel like someone else is going to do the heavy lifting for them.

MathTans the Pun Prince

Yeah, I need to stick with #5 as a whole being my fave, just because of the education perspective that I took to it. The idea of tests deciding who's good enough to move on and up in the world, and the idea that to be seen as special people just "game" the system, rather than really trying to understand the problems with it.

Mharz

every chapter has a good message.

snuffysam

And then how they moved to "eh, it's easier to just do our jobs than argue"

MathTans the Pun Prince

I have no idea how something that that could even be storyboarded. Impressed.

Mharz

at the same time they don't want to feel they're useless

RebelVampire

i really liked the art in chapter 4 because of how differently the oil was depicted. cause sometimes it could look benign and just kind of normal but then other images are just immensely spook and make it look like this terrible horror substance

Mharz

yeah

MathTans the Pun Prince

Actually, the "cheating the system" bit in #5 when Jun reprogrammed it made me think of James Kirk and the Kobyashi Maru "no win" situation.

Kabocha

only Jun was making the system work logically

MathTans the Pun Prince

Agreed, interesting art on that. Horror vibe but not to the extent that I was put off.

Kabocha

It takes a special kind of programmer to really eff up basic logic problems

MathTans the Pun Prince

Here's the thing though, the programmers must be machines, right? They're all machines there.

Kabocha

there's reference to the creators though

and we have NO idea who the creators are

MathTans the Pun Prince

Well, sure, you'd want to program something like that in.

snuffysam

My interpretation was that the system was designed that way intentionally- for whatever reason, making smart people think they're dumb was the creators' intention.

Mharz

Man seeing those source code in chapter 5 gave me nostalgia in my college days

MathTans the Pun Prince

Snuffy: Interesting. Like a vendetta or something.

RebelVampire

yeah i agree with the system was designed intentionally that way for reasons we cant yet comprehend.

Mharz

yeah

RebelVampire

cause all the cities seem to have a flaw of some sort

like a really big flaw that should not form naturally

Kabocha

could it be that over the course of running, each city ended up getting messed up?

MathTans the Pun Prince

Bad AC/DC conversion made some robots crazy.

Mharz

it was made messed up...

sskessa

i won't say anything unless you ask me directly

snuffysam

Maybe the creators just wanted to make a planet-wide factory (for silicon, oil, etc), so... they built sections with robots that could make those things and left them to it?

MathTans the Pun Prince

jumps 5 feet in the air An author! (and/or artist?)

Kabocha

Ahahahaha

Mharz

RebelVampire

breathe math, breathe

Mharz

She's the author

and the artist

MathTans the Pun Prince

I've been very jumpy lately.(edited)

sskessa

do not be alarmed

Kabocha

sskessa, why do they ship the dumbest robots off after Chapter 6? Mel seems to understand that they get sent out as they progress further along in their ignorance... Or is that spoiler territory?

I'm thinking they're sending them to another facility to do a thing, but what, I wonder

Mharz

oooh good one

sskessa

i have an answer and i don't know if it's spoilers, because i haven't decided how much info i'll put into the comic by the end.

MathTans the Pun Prince

If you send out your stupid people, you retain the smart ones.

snuffysam

How long are you planning on making the comic?

sskessa

maybe 10 years total. so far it's been 2 years

MathTans the Pun Prince

Dedication, woot.

RebelVampire

that is some extreme dedication. very impressive~!

Mharz

sskessa

i think by the end of the whole comic, you'll understand what's happening in chapter 5

MathTans the Pun Prince

Note that when you're shipping robots, you need to be careful they don't become trees.

Mharz

in 10 years

Feather, Duke of Hot Leaf Juice

Chapter 5 is one of my favourites

snuffysam

I meant chapter-wise- but I suppose 10 years is around 30 chapters?

Feather, Duke of Hot Leaf Juice

I have the first 5 books and I have Chapter 2 and 5 in my bag all the time and show them around to people(edited)

Mharz

I like how everyone is being referred to in female pronouns.

MathTans the Pun Prince

I'm also massively impressed that there's a whole opening sequence for the comic.

Mharz

OMG

MathTans the Pun Prince

Mharz: I didn't even totally pick up on that.

Mharz

I LIKE THAT VIDEO

yeah I've noticed it

since chapter 1 everyone refers to everyone as "her" and "she"

MathTans the Pun Prince

Yeah, no, I'm realizing it as you say it in retrospect.

sskessa

it seems like a lot of people have overlooked it, but it's true. everyone is female

Feather, Duke of Hot Leaf Juice

Got to poof out becuase I got to do something but I love sskessa's stuff so much

Literally read and bought the books on the same day

MathTans the Pun Prince

I suppose with them being kind of naked that eliminates the need to draw male bits, uhm.

Mharz

AWESOME

MathTans the Pun Prince

(Do robots have those?)

snuffysam

They're also robots. So... that's not an issue regardless

Feather, Duke of Hot Leaf Juice

Yeah I love the fact they are all robots too

snuffysam

Heh exactly

Mharz

I mean one lays egg so there's a possibility?

Feather, Duke of Hot Leaf Juice

So it makes things really transparent

Superjustin of Time and Space

Hello!

Mharz

in case there are male robots

snuffysam

Were the people in chapter 1 robots? I wasn't quite sure...

MathTans the Pun Prince

Male robot is needed to make queen.

Superjustin of Time and Space

Wait

Mharz

Not in the first chapter tho

Superjustin of Time and Space

Robots can breed in this universe?

MathTans the Pun Prince

Yeah, when the one ripped off the tail there were electronic parts.

Even in Cahpter 1.

sskessa

all the characters in all chapters so far have been robots. the green ones in chapter 1 were just very early designs

Mharz

oooooh

Superjustin of Time and Space

Oh lol

Kabocha

I dunno that I'd call it breeding

snuffysam

Cool cool

Kabocha

synthesizing perhaps

MathTans the Pun Prince

Robots breed by becoming trees.

Mharz

yeah that's the more appropriate term

Superjustin of Time and Space

I agree

MathTans the Pun Prince

They're synthesizers. plays music

Mharz

LOL MATH

Kabocha

not the midi kind

RebelVampire

im curious about the fact that the robots feel pain. like particularly in the first chapter, why would you design it so a robot feels pain when synthesizing?

sskessa

snuffysam

The chapter 2 specific robots reproduced by becoming trees though. Chapter 3's were made on an assembly line.

Mharz

all the robots have emotions tho

Kabocha

I dunno that I'd call it pain too much either; it's just electrical impulses that their systems might not have a great way of processing

snuffysam

That does raise a question of what the creators' intentions were...

Mharz

yeah

MathTans the Pun Prince

Does the protagonist? She's seemed pretty emotionless. (Granted, creepy teeth sometimes which makes her look sort of upset, but she's very logical.)

RebelVampire

well technically all human pain is just electrical impulses processed by the brain

Kabocha

(I'm being pedantic okay)

Mharz

Kabocha

I guess what I'm getting at is the pain is more like an interrupt though, or just an unexpected input from a not-great design

Mharz

it might be possible that Jun hasn't comprehended it yet since she has just been repaired.

Kabocha

Jun, quick, become an electrical engineer!

RebelVampire

thats a fairer way to put it

i think jun has emotions tho to a degree. i mean in the sixth chapter she does say "don't abandon me" which thats kind of reflective of an emotion

Mharz

yeah

Superjustin of Time and Space

Yeah

Oh of course I would yeah to a prior post

MathTans the Pun Prince

I suppose. She also grew a tail, I think. I'm not quite sure where that's going.

Superjustin of Time and Space

Thanks Discord mobile for not scrolling down

snuffysam

Yeah she seemed pretty attached to her friend in Chapter 2 (to the point where she's afraid of someone leaving her again in chapter 6)

Feather, Duke of Hot Leaf Juice

I also love that the name came from the location of where names are extremely important

Mharz

and she was concerned when Mel was crying and that she might turn into a tree like camphor

MathTans the Pun Prince

Snuffy: Good point on that callback.

Mharz

tho I found those lines a bit funny. sorry.

"Don't cry! You might turn into a tree!"

MathTans the Pun Prince

Yeah, it was the reaction to the tree thing that was funny. Like, tree, whatchootalkinbout?

Kabocha

sskessa -- do the names have any actual importance, or are they randomly assigned characters?

(like, does the string eventually indicate that there is a function or assignment for that?)

sskessa

the names from chapter 5 are randomly assigned, alternating between consonant and vowel

RebelVampire

yeah i agree the tree bit was also sort of funny cause of course mel doesnt know wtf that means

Kabocha

Aaaah, okay

MathTans the Pun Prince

Is Y a vowel? ^.^

sskessa

but "jun" has a personal meaning to me and i intended to name her that since the beginning

Mharz

and Jun probably got an assumption that robots turn into trees when they cry because that's what happened to the first robot she saw crying

MathTans the Pun Prince

I feel like I want to put an 'e' on the end of the name. ^.^

snuffysam

I think the story structure is interesting. Chapters 2-5 had basically no callbacks to earlier chapters (except Jun's goal of making the cities more efficient). Suddenly, Chapter 6 has a bunch, with the first character carrying over between chapters, and referencing the turning into a tree.

(besides Jun, who carries over every chapter)

Mharz

I really like how they were all stand-alone

well almost(edited)

MathTans the Pun Prince

Yeah, I'm reminded of some of those old TV shows where you have the central character (like Columbo or Kojak or whatever) and the entire cast around them is different. So it doesn't really matter where you start reading/watching.

Kabocha

I think the callbacks in Chapter 6 were appropriate, though, since Jun had someone to carry that over with. It's also a good reminder of what came before, too.

RebelVampire

QUESTION 2. Alethia features a world where scattered groups of robots all live together functioning in different ways. While it is clear that the robots had creators of some sort, they are nowhere to be found. Why were the robots created in the first place? How did the world get to be the way it is? Why do the robots live so scattered even though some areas seem to have transportation to and from different places? What was the original purpose of each factory city?(edited)

Kabocha

insufficient data

RebelVampire

MathTans the Pun Prince

It's all happening in their minds.

snuffysam

Was it a planet-wide factory? Some sort of social experiment by the creators? Only time will tell, I think...

Mharz

pretty sure whoever the creator is they didn't program the robots to have knowledge of the outside

or they probably have

but they never consider leaving(edited)

MathTans the Pun Prince

What I'm kinda wondering about it who maintains the power station(s). And who built THAT (them).

Mharz

ooor they have limited capabilities

snuffysam

The robots in chapter 5 knew there was a world outside their city

Mharz

cus camphor can only take 800 steps before running out of batteries

MathTans the Pun Prince

Well yes. So different power systems but there seems to be compatability.

RebelVampire

i think all the robots besides the tree ones know. cause i recall there being a few other times jun arrived and the robots were like "oh we dont usually see outsiders"(edited)

snuffysam

The robots in chapter 2 knew there was a vast world, but they couldn't visit it.

MathTans the Pun Prince

(Are there AC and DC robots?)

Mharz

oh yeah that's true

Kabocha

Each city seems to explore an aspect of humanity or society and the contradictions with each theme. You have a group that's expected to rely on one person to continue to carry on the future, even at great personal pain. You have another group that's expected to pair up, but... I mean, not everyone wants to do that! Come on. (Poor Camphor, though.) Another yet is willing to shunt the work on another person -- teamwork and loyalty gone awry. And then another is willing to forgo actual learning in favor of passing a test.

Mharz

poor camphor

RebelVampire

yeah part of me wonders if the creators are doing this as a huge social experiment

Mharz

-_-

snuffysam

(and the robots in chapter 3, which create separate social castes based on something completely arbitrary)

RebelVampire

to see which society functions best

MathTans the Pun Prince

I dunno, camphor didn't seem good at seeing the big picture. Like, upon finding out that everyone was trying to keep her there, she just said she'd leave.

Mharz

bottomline is not all systems are perfect.

snuffysam

Chapter 4 is especially interesting, because the major "flaw" only came up recently.

MathTans the Pun Prince

True. No system is really.

Kabocha

I kinda read the tree city as being a sorta high-level commentary on sexual expectations in society without going there? Camphor strikes me as wanting to do their own thing, and was essentially the only person in the society that was ace, but being pressured into pairing off. ...I dunno, each chapter sticks with you in a different way and the interpretation's gonna be pretty subjective.

Chapter 4 felt like a giant "fuck you" to most workplaces loooool

sskessa

you can use female pronouns for all the characters

MathTans the Pun Prince

Okay, related to the recent question, crazy theory time about "Robots had creators".... Jun is one of the creators. She was cast out and had her memory taken because she didn't agree with the creators any more. Or possibly she volunteered, in order to see if the systems they all put in place were working and didn't want to be biased by knowing them.

Kabocha

(oh crap, it's already 8:30 and we haven't had any crazy conspiracy theories about teh plot yet)

MathTans the Pun Prince

Yeah, definitely subjective interpretations for some of it. That's an interesting one though, Kabocha.

snuffysam

Nothing crazy yet, no. We have had some theories.

MathTans the Pun Prince

(Jun's a SPY I tell you... deep undercover.)

snuffysam

"Jun is one of the creators" makes as much sense as anything else...

What are your thoughts on the tail?

Kabocha

Long live the queen? :3

snuffysam

Yeah, I'm thinking it's a callback to chapter 1 in some capacity...

sskessa

haha, you're the second person to suggest that

RebelVampire

jun is clearly just going through robot puberty

sskessa

should i keep quiet wrt to theories?

snuffysam

yeah probably

MathTans the Pun Prince

Up to you, sskessa.

It'll be on the web later.

sskessa

alright, i'll keep quiet. you'll find out everything eventually

RebelVampire

yeah these chats do get archived and the chat history is always readable

but its largely up to you

weve had chats with spoilers, had some with no spoilers

MathTans the Pun Prince

The tail is to help with swimming, obvs.

Kabocha

Oh no, the next city is a water level

MathTans the Pun Prince

Better call a plumber.

RebelVampire

actually

thatd be interesting if that was the reason somehow

that there was adaption for the city coming up

and somehow a tail was needed

MathTans the Pun Prince

bows

(good spin)

snuffysam

she was pretty broken when the chapter 1 robots found her. maybe this is self-repair?

Kabocha

Jun is slowly changing each chapter, hehe

She's truly an admirable AI

MathTans the Pun Prince

I feel like she had enough power previously to do evolution though. So why trigger it now?

snuffysam

distance from her home?

MathTans the Pun Prince

Oh, sskessa, in case I forget to ask later - Chinese translation, is that you? It's an interesting language choice.

Snuffy: Fair point.

Could be getting close to home with the other creators.

Mharz

What I missed? Our power went out

RebelVampire

you missed the secrets of life being revealed

sorry Mharz

Mharz

Dang

MathTans the Pun Prince

Jun is actually an acquatic goddess.

Kabocha

Don't worry, it was only applicable to robots

Mharz

That's not Jun's final form

sskessa

the chinese translation is done by my friend, but i read over it and give feedback

MathTans the Pun Prince

That's neat.

sskessa

we discuss the subtleties of all the word choices, so everything in the chinese translation is definitely intentional

Kabocha

That's neat though

Mharz

power's back woo!

MathTans the Pun Prince

I would think the "characters in a name" thing would translate differently.

sskessa

haha, well, it was very important to me that her name be "jun" so i had to keep the latin letters

Mharz

interesting

MathTans the Pun Prince

That's fair.

sskessa

this isn't a spoiler, she is named after my favorite singer, jun togawa.

Mharz

ooooh

MathTans the Pun Prince

With synthesizer backup...

Mharz

jun and mel will make a band

snuffysam

@sskessa, in the animated OP- how much direction did you give Ann Mendenhall? With regards to referencing future events, for instance.

thanks discord, that's totally what i wanted after the @ symbol

MathTans the Pun Prince

Spice Girls, Unplugged.

sskessa

hm....i believe it was $1000

i had a sponsor

Mharz

whoa

that's so cool

MathTans the Pun Prince

O.o

Mharz

the she animated everything herself?(edited)

snuffysam

whoa dang

sskessa

i told someone about my project and he gave me the money for it, i gave it to ann. she animated everything single-handedly. i drew the backgrounds

snuffysam

did you give her storyboards or something?

sskessa

sometimes, yes.

Mharz

kudos to her

it's very well made

sskessa

she is very good, you can commission her :3

Mharz

I wish I have the money

I can do it myself but I really just don't have the time and patience

snuffysam

it was certainly worth it. the OP got me hooked

sskessa

for example, i gave her this reference for the tower

snuffysam

oh neat

Mharz

oh wow that's cool

how long did she take to animate everything?

sskessa

a year

Mharz

omg

well it's very well made so it's worth it

:' D

RebelVampire

QUESTION 3. This comic deals with a lot heavy themes concerning collectivism, individuality, guilt, forgiveness, peer pressure, and much more. Which theme and story resonated with you the most and why? What other sorts of storylines and themes do you think are possible? Are there any characters you think it’d be interesting to see again? What do you think the comic’s overall theme and/or message is?

sskessa

haha, it's not like anyone knew we were making it, so no pressure to rush

Mharz

I totally salute her.

sskessa

listens intently to the answers to this question

Mharz

is thinking...

MathTans the Pun Prince

As a teacher, for me it's still got to be #5. With the assuming books are right and not doing proper thinking, or in the one case needing to understand the REASONING, which I always tell students is SO key, like, don't just memorize an algorithm. But there it's taken to the extreme, looking for reason in something that has no system of logic.

Or a continually changing system of logic anyway.

I'm reminded of a Janway quote, "You can use logic to justify almost anything. That is its power, and its flaw."(edited)

Mharz

not all truths can be found in books.

Feather, Duke of Hot Leaf Juice

I love the backwards logic of Chapter 5

Some of it is really funny

sskessa

part of it was inspired by reading someone in a reddit debate say "circular reasoning doesn't bother me"

Mharz

that is some twisted logic

MathTans the Pun Prince

The math teacher in me is screaming.

snuffysam

The comic so far seems to have a theme of "people will let their emotions/biases lead them to make irrational decisions"?

MathTans the Pun Prince

As far as other themes, I could see addressing keeping something for sentimentality reasons even though it has no "practical" purpose. Or maybe even a "hoarder" issue, like someone who just collects a bunch of stuff not really for any reason. Not sure where one might take that though, would need to be careful.

snuffysam

Though that could change as Jun's worldview changes in the coming chapters

Ooh, good one

RebelVampire

snuffysam: i like that as an overall interpretation for the comic

seems pretty accurate

MathTans the Pun Prince

Bias would keep anyone in business forever. There's so many of them.

Feather, Duke of Hot Leaf Juice

Also the best part of that statment

because they are robots

Robots usually are the most logical things when people think about them

MathTans the Pun Prince

ALL the bias, in wheel form. (credit at the bottom)

Mharz

Some knowledge and beliefs we have came from our environment and peers

sskessa

wow beautiful

snuffysam

Question is- in situations like Chapter 3, was it somebody's idea to split up the classes of robots, or was that the creators' design?

RebelVampire

i think for me its also #5 that stuck with me the most because of the themes of peer pressure and blind adherance. like the ending to the chapter hit me really hard. cause i liked all the touch about education and books not being right etc. but what hit me is that mel was right and that for mel it was like watching a train wreck happening and being unable to do that. and i felt thats a good parallel for what life sometimes feels like. where we can see the inevitable outcome of something for a person or a society, and yet there is absolutely nothing we can do because norms prevent others from fully embracing differing perspectives.

Mharz

yeah

I can relate to that too

MathTans the Pun Prince

Good one.

Maybe creators put in contingency plans, Snuffys?

sskessa

@RebelVampire that's definitely what i was thinking about when i wrote it. thinking about friends of mine

Mharz

like I was trying to figure out the logic within a certain book but peers just keep telling to just believe it just like that withoug any concrete proof as to why.

RebelVampire

yeah but to be fair, all knowledge exists only because we agree on the answers. so in a sense education will always have a sense of peer pressure in only believing the most accepted thing

MathTans the Pun Prince

2+2 = 5

Kabocha

in certain cases where you have a float error....

Mharz

no math

MathTans the Pun Prince

Rootbeer float error. "2" is too large.

Kabocha

2 is perfect what are you talking about

Mharz

2 is a company 3 is a crowd

MathTans the Pun Prince

Actually 6 is the first perfect number. Divisors are 1, 2, 3 and 1+2+3 = 6.

It's a real thing. So are friendly numbers.

sskessa

so with that in mind, sometimes the only way to escape peer pressure, which is not always consciously recognized, is to physically leave a group of people

MathTans the Pun Prince

sskessa: Good point. Which is hard when we want to fit in somewhere.

Mharz

oh yes definitely

I mean I agree to you both

sskessa

oh, 2+2=5 is a theme in "notes from underground"

snuffysam

It's also why it's so interesting that Lak chose to stay behind.

sskessa

to answer the question myself, the next story arc is going to be the one that is the most personal to me so far.

MathTans the Pun Prince

There. Are. Four. Lights. (Okay, now I've referenced original series, Voyager and TNG. Can I get the others in?)(edited)

snuffysam

Looking forward to it!

RebelVampire

oh that sounds exciting

Kabocha

What's the general synopsis, sskessa~?

(of the arc)

sskessa

@MathTans the Pun Prince XD

MathTans the Pun Prince

About friendship, maybe? Given there's two of them now.

RebelVampire

i wonder if the robots will know how to "fix" the fix jun used in chapter 5. or if they will actually have to have correct answers now. cause jun's fix was so simple unless you had looked at the code before you might miss that single punctuation that changes everything

Mharz

forgot a semi-colon, got 1000 errors

trust me I can relate

sskessa

mel and jun arrive in the movie factory and meet the most famous actress of robot world (who you've seen before). jun does not understand the function of movies. we meet the "underground robot," the most unpopular robot in the movie factory who writes anti-literature. the character is my personal response to dostoyevsky's "notes from underground"

a book which i have very mixed feelings about

Mharz

weren't mel watching a movie in the transport thing?(edited)

sskessa

yes

snuffysam

and they had movies in chapter 4

Mharz

oooh

snuffysam

very interested to see where that goes!

Kabocha

oooh! :3 So the actress is one they saw in that movie, then?

RebelVampire

QUESTION 4. Jun, as the main character comes to be named, is on a mission to travel from city to city and correct their inefficiencies. However, there remains many questions about Jun in regards to this. Who created Jun and for what purpose? Is Jun’s mission a result of free-will or is it something driven by underlying programming? Should Jun even be fixing the cities, or would it be better if Jun left them the way they are? What do you think will be Jun’s ultimate fate?

sskessa

@Kabocha yes, and she is the main character of the next arc.

snuffysam

So far, it seems Jun's goal is just the result of something someone in chapter 3 suggested.

maybe that was her remembering her true purpose?

Mharz

I think Jun weren't meant to do that but after what happened to camphor, somehow triggered her to go and fix the cities.

snuffysam

for the most part, she seems to just be exploring. the only reason she keeps fixing cities is because they're all broken.

MathTans the Pun Prince

Jun will meet herself. If you travel far enough, you meet yourself, and that's totally possible with robots.

Mharz

and she did get the idea of "evaluating efficiency" on chapter 3

RebelVampire

i feel like that is kind of her purpose tbh, to evaluate efficiency. which makes the next arc very interesting cause from a practical standpoint movies dont really have purpose. i mean they arguably further culture, but from a productive standpoint they dont have a point(edited)

snuffysam

Mel watches movies. perhaps she will (attempt to) convince Jun of their worth...

Mharz

will she understand the sense of it tho

MathTans the Pun Prince

She'll be the new star. Paid in batteries. Much usefulness.

RebelVampire

jun will learn to have fun O_O go to cool robot starlet pool parties

Mharz

maybe at the end, jun will have full human emotions

sorry I'm dumb

snuffysam

thats what the tail is for. pool parties!

Mharz

omg

sskessa

laughs but you know...i already think she does

have full emotions XD because i am also a very dry person

Mharz

she does but she hasn't realized it fully

MathTans the Pun Prince

That doesn't sound dumb.

Like, having something to be building towards in terms of understanding emotions. I have emotions, doens't mean I always understand them, like why am I crying at a certain point.

Mharz

sskessa

that's a fair point

Mharz

maybe she'll fall in love with someone

sskessa

she already fell in love, back in chapter 3

MathTans the Pun Prince

She'll meet herself then fall in love with herself.

Mharz

MathTans the Pun Prince

A bit curious about her design, incidentally. Different from the other robots. Wider legs, for one thing. Wonder if that means something.

sskessa

what? isn't it normal to be aroused by beautiful abstract concepts? maybe it's just me

snuffysam

Jun efficiency

sskessa

exactly.

snuffysam

OTP

Mharz

sskessa

seriously though, i want her to have a girlfriend at some point. if i can manage to write it well.

MathTans the Pun Prince

I personify mathematics functions as cute females, so I'm the wrong person to ask.

Kabocha

I think however you write it, it'll be fine RebelVampire

to be fair as someone who also likes to find the most efficient way possible to do things, i cant blame jun for falling in love with efficiency XD

Mharz

yeah

MathTans the Pun Prince

Will they ever meet a non-female robot, I wonder. (Not necessarily male.)

sskessa

Mharz

that's interesting

snuffysam

now i'm curious- is there a reason you decided on an all-female world?

Kabocha

They're robots

MathTans the Pun Prince

Females are better, but aside from that.

sskessa

got tired of reading about male characters

snuffysam

fair enough

Mharz

I somehow can relate

not that I have anything against male characters

snuffysam

now that i think about it, pretty much everything i've written or drawn over the past couple years has a female lead...

for basically the same reason

Mharz

I love female leads

MathTans the Pun Prince

I just prefer females. Why would I write about males, I am one, that's not so interesting to me.

Mharz

I love female leads

If you can't tell yet.

MathTans the Pun Prince

The site navigation is interesting too, just to mention it. Having all the strips laid out on one page, scrolling down, rather than page to page to page. Took a while to load, but then could read a lot at once.

I love female lead love.

Mharz

RebelVampire

yeah i like that the scrolldown format for each chapter kind of emphasizes their connected but individual storylines

sskessa

yes, so, the corollary to all characters being female means all characters are lesbians

snuffysam

Navigating between chapters is a bit of a pain. As far as I can tell, the only way to do so is to go back to the chapter list?

sskessa

hm. good point. i will put a "next chapter" button at the bottom of each chapter

Mharz

oh yes please.

snuffysam

Thanks!

Mharz

I did have to scroll back up to get to the next chapter

MathTans the Pun Prince

I just hit my "back" button.

snuffysam

...your browser doesn't have a back button?

lol

sskessa

as for that format, i did my last comic as single-page navigation and it always took so long to load. this way you can leave the comic to load for 5 minutes and then read it all at once

snuffysam

no yeah, that part's great

Mharz

a chapters list and next/previous chapter at the bottom should suffice(edited)

snuffysam

honestly a next button alone would be fine for most purposes. but more is better in this case, i think.

sskessa

will do

Mharz

in case you want to get back at something

MathTans the Pun Prince

The layout's good too on individual pages, works with the scroll down format.

Mharz

I kinda had to go back to chapter 1 to verify if Jun had a tail initially

sskessa

i will try to clear up the tail question in the next arc. i don't intend it to be too mysterious

Mharz

I just like to think that she's evolving into a final form

Respheal

o_o -goes back to chapter 1 to see if there's a tail- (Also hiiiiiiii popping in late)

snuffysam

her head isn't enough of a trash can yet

Mharz

no she doesn't

snuffysam

hi Respheal!

Respheal

Okay xD Was doubting my memory there

Mharz

oh trust me that was me last night too

like "wait, did she have a tail?" O_O

sskessa

hi!

MathTans the Pun Prince

It's not a tail, it's the start of a third leg. ^.^ (Actually, yeah, all the robots look human-ish. Which helps to relate to them, though I wonder if we'll run into a place where they don't.)

"Why do you have two heads?" "Why don't you?"

Mharz

the queen isn't

I mean she looks like an adorable dinosaur

MathTans the Pun Prince

True that.

Mharz

with a badass spiky hair

(edited)

Kabocha

They are probably designed to better imitate their creators

snuffysam

of course, we don't know the creators are human

they could just be more robots

MathTans the Pun Prince

Their creator... V'ger! (Okay, no more Trek references.)

snuffysam

robots all the way down

Mharz

Kabocha

recursive robots

RebelVampire

but somewhere down the line thered be non machine based life. cause machine based life doesnt just pop up from nothing

its called manmade for a reason

Mharz

yeah

MathTans the Pun Prince

Beats cursive robots. Walking around like @(#(@#.

Mharz

LOOOL

Kabocha

Shh, the creators clearly had a design in mind

RebelVampire

Unfortunately, the scheduled Comic Tea Party is now complete~! Thank you everyone so much for joining this week’s chat~! That being said, if you would like to continue discussing the comic, we encourage you to do so~! We want to give a big thank you to Kristina Stipetic, as well, for volunteering Alethia for our reading queue. If you liked the comic, please be sure to support Kristina Stipetic’s efforts. If you have questions, concerns, or suggestions about CTP, please feel free to PM me, or e-mail me at [email protected].

With that said, next week’s Comic Tea Party will focus on Magnetic North by Kat Gemmill. Please use this week to read as much of the comic as you would like. Hope to see you next Thursday (October 26th) from 5PM to 7PM PDT~! Until then~! Comic: http://www.magneticnorthcomic.com/

#ctparchive #webcomics #indie comics #comics #comic tea party #comicteaparty #ctp #start faire #startfaire #comic discussion #comic chat #comic bookclub #bookclub #alethia #kristina stipetic

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suzannebyrne · 7 years ago

Text

How social media is fueling celebrity family feuds like Ariel Winter's and Rosie O'Donnell's

Ariel Winter and her mother Crystal Workman, don’t get along. (Photos: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images, Inside Edition)

It actually makes us sad every time the name Crystal Workman pops up in our feed. She’s the estranged mother of Ariel Winter — and she typically has nothing good to say about her famous daughter, whom she was stripped custody of in 2012.

Without giving this woman too much of a platform — court testimony stated that when Workman served as Winter’s manager (the Modern Family actress’s career began at age 4), she deprived her of food and sleep, slapped, hit, and pushed her, and lost custody of Winter at 14 — she gave a new interview to Inside Edition this week, attacking her famous kid’s Emmy dress, which had two very high slits (gasp!), but more fabric than many other frocks on the carpet. Unbelievably, Workman, who admitted in the interview that she is having financial problems (interviews = cha-ching), said, “I feel that Ariel is starving for attention. I feel this is a cry for help from my child… I just want to see her have respect for herself and have some class.”

#Emmys #2017

A post shared by ARIEL WINTER (@arielwinter) on Sep 17, 2017 at 7:26pm PDT

Winter recently told the Hollywood Reporter that she hasn’t spoken to her mother in five years, yet this feud continues to play out publicly through TV interviews, magazine stories, and, of course, social media. The TV star actually commented on her mom’s latest media play via Twitter, saying, “Very sad when someone chooses a public forum to reach out to someone. Also sad when that reach out comes in the form of criticizing.”

Very sad when someone chooses a public forum to reach out to someone. Also sad when that reach out comes in the form of criticizing.

— Ariel Winter (@arielwinter1) September 20, 2017

And it’s an ongoing cycle. In June, Workman was interviewed by In Touch and provided some buzzy quotes about how her kid, who is already very successful at the age of 19 (in addition to her hit show, she recently started college at UCLA), “needs to grow up” and “dress properly.” Winter, who is constantly criticized for her revealing wardrobe, responded that time on social media as well.

What's sad is that you lie consistently. Also, why is it that you only choose to talk to me through the press? I'm doing just fine. Toxic.

— Ariel Winter (@arielwinter1) June 7, 2017

“What’s sad is that you lie consistently,” Winter wrote. “Also, why is it that you only choose to talk to me through the press? I’m doing just fine. Toxic.”

We’re not going to get into every similar exchange — Workman has even gone on Dr. Phil to talk about her daughter — other than to note that it’s a continuing cycle and, from the way we see it, falls into the bullying category. We’ll also add that Winter is obviously not helping by giving interviews about her mother, who was an aspiring actress herself, sexualizing her daughter when she was as young as 7. Of course, this is Winter’s story and she should be able to share it — we are behind that 100 percent. But each time she does it, is only going to increase interest in the topic. And if you criticize someone for only choosing to talk to you in the press, is social media really a better avenue?

Rosie O’Donnell’s daughter Chelsea hasn’t been living under her roof since 2015, but that hasn’t stopped her from bashing her parenting skills. (Photo: Getty Images)

Similar — and equally as sad — is mom of five Rosie O’Donnell’s public spat with her estranged daughter, who has documented emotional problems. This week, Chelsea O’Donnell Alliegro gave an interview to the Daily Mail (again, cha-ching — there is financial compensation), sharing her opinions about the recent suicide of O’Donnell’s ex-wife, Michelle Rounds.

“She was always sweet and loving and thinking about other people,” is the first soundbite Chelsea gave about her estranged mother’s ex-wife, followed by, “That’s now how I would describe Rosie.” The 20-year-old went on to talk about how O’Donnell’s marriage to Rounds fell apart, happily taking jab after jab at the famous comedian. She ended by breaking her own news — Chelsea’s nine-weeks pregnant with her first child. “I’ve always wanted a family,” she sniffed, implying O’Donnell, who adopted her when she was two months old because her drug-addicted mother couldn’t care for her, never gave her one.

The interview — and the timing — can only be described as brutal, and of course O’Donnell wasn’t going to let it go. Famously outspoken, especially on Twitter, she took to Twitter to call out her daughter for profiting off of Rounds’s death. And she took it one step further by going on to air some of Chelsea’s dirty laundry — claiming that her husband Nick Alliegro, whom Chelsea met at Dunkin’ Donuts and secretly married last year, “was arrested for beating u up.”

O’Donnell posted several tweets following Chelsea’s interview, including one saying, “Michelle’s death = money 4 Chelsea.”

https://t.co/W5t4zg65RH we have been here before Chelsea u wanna go a few rounds in public seems so

Michelle's death = money 4 Chelsea pic.twitter.com/cgqrp16EyC

— ROSIE (@Rosie) September 20, 2017

In this post, Rosie asked her daughter, “Did u hate me this day? last year – at the apple store – was this b4 nick was arrested for beating u up? same same.”

did u hate me this day? last year – at the apple store – was this b4 nick was arrested for beating u up? same same pic.twitter.com/nCJFdawJ3z

— ROSIE (@Rosie) September 20, 2017

one year ago kid – u want a public discussion – did they pay u again – how much this time? same same same chelsea pic.twitter.com/TqUtS5lStA

— ROSIE (@Rosie) September 20, 2017

Like Winter and her mother, the O’Donnell feud is an ongoing cycle too. Earlier this year, Chelsea did the same thing on Inside Edition. O’Donnell reacted then too both on social media and her own website, where she openly wrote about Chelsea’s two rehab stays in the last two years, her attempted suicide on Labor Day 2016, Nick’s arrest for domestic violence, and how doctors recently “found a hole in [Chelsea’s] frontal lobe, most like from a stroke in utero, that severely compromises her cognitive abilities and always has.”

Oliver and Kate Hudson were raised by mom Goldie Hawn and her partner, Kurt Russell, whom they call “Pa.” They have spoken out on multiple occasions about their birth father, musician Bill Hudson, not being part of their lives. (Photo: Christopher Peterson/Splash News)

Winter and O’Donnell aren’t alone. It wasn’t that long ago that Oliver Hudson, brother of Kate Hudson, dissed their birth father, Bill Hudson, via an Instagram post on Father’s Day 2015. His “Happy abandonment day… @katehudson” post led to Bill disowning them.

Happy abandonment day… @katehudson

A post shared by Oliver Hudson (@theoliverhudson) on Jun 21, 2015 at 6:18pm PDT

We asked Art Markman, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, to help us make sense off this frankly depressing trend.

“Family relationships are hard,” he says. “Family are deeply invested in each others’ lives. Parents typically raise their children without asking for specific payment in return. Children may take care of aging parents. This close bond not only creates this kind of sharing, it also creates a deep emotional investment. As a result, the good times with loved ones create real emotional highs and the bad times create strong negative reactions — sadness, anxiety, and anger.”

Of course, when people get angry, they are prone to lash out. “Family members may yell at each other, even if they never yell at anyone else,” adds Markman, who can also be found on Twitter. “And the things said and done in anger are often things people regret later. When those actions are taken in private, it is easy for someone to later apologize and begin to repair the relationship.”

If you and your relatives couldn’t get enough of the spat between your Aunt Mary and her daughter-in-law Lisa last Thanksgiving, you can only imagine how the interest is magnified for celebrities — especially ones being accused of being a parent or a teen letting loose a “cry for help.”

“Because celebrities have a strong following, they are able to take to social media and also to the regular media to air their grievances,” he continues. “Angry tweets or interviews draw an audience. But, these social media posts and interviews also become part of the public record. It is harder to walk back a public statement than a private one. As a result, a feud made public can escalate.”

So how does the cycle get broken? It takes a big person to ignore mean comments about their character, especially when they become trending topics. Further, if you don’t respond does that somehow mean you agree with what your detractor is saying?

“In order to calm this down, two things are needed,” Markman says. “First, the parties have to want to de-escalate the conflict. Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying, ‘The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.’ For many celebrities, there is an appeal to being part of the news cycle that can lead them to continue with public fights, despite the pain and harm it may cause in the long-term. Second, the parties need to apologize publicly and privately for the things they have said. The private apology is to begin to mend the relationship. The public one is to provide some space for the individual to go about their lives and to do the harder work of making up.”

And making up may be hard to do — but not impossible. If Angelina Jolie and Jon Voight can do it, after he gave an interview in which he said she had “serious mental problems,” we have hope for the others.